What is More Kitsch than Unrequited Love Lauren A. Boisvert They made a statue of us We never listened to it together but it was about us, I pinned it to you like a participation ribbon Regina Spektor but kept my ribbon hidden away and you never found it even though I wanted you to. “Us” Soviet Kitsch And it’s contagious 04/2004 I’ve moved to three different places in my house Sire trying to write a poem about a boy with an ugly personality who loved me in high school but I haven’t seen him in five years so what does it even matter anyway I only wrote an entire chapbook about him last year but it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter and if I say it enough times maybe it will be true. It’s all our fault I wanted to be Regina Spektor some little brown-haired pixie with a voice like a waterfall but I didn’t get very far because I can’t play the piano and my voice is only suited for Alanis Morrissette karaoke and I have suspicious eyes like dirty olive pits and who would want a selfish little Saint Sebastian with her hands full of dirt but you were going to fit into the mold of my indie other half if I had to force you into it with “Sweet Disposition” playing in the background because 500 Days of Summer came out in the dead center of our high school years and what are teenagers if not ignorant romantics but the mad dogs biting in my stomach now all want me to forget what we were like. It’s contagious There is nothing I want more than to be put down and stay down like a sick cat poison me nine times until I lie still and every memory from 2007 to 2011 drains out of my ears like tangled string and puddles on the floor. Sweep them into a dustpan and please, throw them away. Our parts are slightly used “They” is me and “Us” is you until you didn’t want me anymore and I tore down your rusting city with my bare hands but not enough to exorcise you from the remains of myself that is your city. I only wanted to hear you play piano for me again because I am romantic at my highest and petty at my lowest and indecisive at my in-between. .